My Store Made a Change Just for Locavores

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We have no idea how long this has been going on since we don’t normally buy our produce in Tribeca, but this weekend we noticed that, some feet away from the Tribeca Greenmarket on Greenwich between Chambers and Duane Streets, Food Emporium has a Greenmarket-esque tent offering Satur Farms lettuce (in addition to anonymous “local grown lettuce”), “Jersey-grown asparagus,” and the like. Hey, when Stokes Farm sets up in your front yard, you do what you can to fight back. And Food Emporium isn’t the only big grocer courting locavores.

FreshDirect has announced that starting today, it’s doubling its local offerings to include more than 350 products during the peak season, from more than 30 farmers and suppliers within 300 miles of New York City. As an interactive map shows, those farms include Ronnybrook, Constant Bliss Cheese, Jasper Hill Farms, Altobelli Farms, Breezy Hill Orchard, and, of course, longtime supplier Satur Farms.

The Hardwick beef is grass-fed (well, grass-, legume-, and hay-fed, to be precise)! The flounder is “day-boat caught”! And the product description of “Local Wild Cod Fillet” informs that “fishermen tell us that Montauk cod are ‘unbelievable in season’” — it’s almost like talking to a farmer at the Greenmarket! But wait, what’s this: They’re trucking their pretzels in from Pennsylvania! Sigmund would not be pleased.